


Ink Brothers

by TheSpaceCoyote



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, Update Fanfic, tattooing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-20
Updated: 2012-11-20
Packaged: 2017-11-19 03:57:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/568819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSpaceCoyote/pseuds/TheSpaceCoyote
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dirk gives Jake a little surprise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ink Brothers

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little something written for the Act 6 Part 4 flash.

It may not have been a genius move to hand over your bare virgin shoulder to a friend with a alchemically cobbled together tattoo gun and only the assurance that he’d “give you something you’d like” and nothing more. But Dirk had a way of convincing you, and you have to admit, the idea of getting tattooed was certainly alluring to your daring temperament.   

Besides, the air in your land had the unusual effect of making you a bit more, uh— _loopy_  than you usually were. So when Dirk had proposed the idea to you during a break in your nigh constant conflict with the inhabitants of your planet, you had heartily agreed and handed the reigns onto him and his amateur artistry. 

He’d forbade you from looking down until it was totally finished so instead you look to the closest of the ruddy megaliths encircling you, the only sound being the incessant buzzing of the tool as Dirk works its way into your skin. 

You’ve been trying to keep a cool composure all this time and you’d say you’re doing pretty all right, but blimey, does that  _smart_! You wonder how in the blazes Dirk could have done this to himself with even less prior experience than he was working with now. 

Dirk’s hands are firm, yours slightly less so as the stinging tremors make your fists shake. You can feel a bit of sweat trickle down your cheekbone. You flick out your tongue and lick it away as soon as it gets close to your mouth. You’ve lost track of how long he’s been going at, but last time you asked he gave you a noncommittal grunt so you figured you’d best let him alone until he finished. After all, you wouldn’t want to break his concentration and make him screw up, would you? Then you might wind up with something ridiculous and  _permanent_  on your shoulder! And you would certainly never hear the end of it from the girls if that were to happen. 

Your fingers scrape against the flat central slab where the two of you are sitting, and you suddenly find this location to be strangely apt. You don’t know if the strange skull people that inhabit your stepped planet believe in such things but if they  _did_  engage in some type of spiffy pagan ritual this would definitely be the place where they would do it. As such, this is where your boyhood is sacrificed, this is where you become a rugged adventurer with the badass inkery to prove it!

The buzzing of the gun halts, and you hold your breath. 

“All right.” You hear Dirk sy, “Done. You can take a look, Jake.”

Your simmering excitement bubbles over the lingering pain and you practically bounce in your seat at his words. You turn your eyes away from the standing stones and hunch your shoulder up towards your chin as you angle your elbow up to get a better view. 

And instead of something cool like a fanged skull with two crosshatched guns and a banner inscribed with Latin, a bug-eyed, bearded face looks up at you in all its poorly rendered glory. 

Your mouth drops, and your eyes widen to match those of your freshly scrawled body art. 

You’re so stunned that you hardly have a moment to ruminate over how the bloody hell Dirk was able to replicate shoddy JPEG rendering corruption with a blasted tattoo gun and relatively untrained hands. It’s so completely unexpected that the bally air itself seems to have been sucked out of you. You’d cycled through a million possibilities in your head while he was tattooing you but this had never cropped up at  _all._

You look up at Dirk, half expecting him to be smirking like this is some enormous prank pulled at your expense, but he appears deadly serious. His fingers are tented with the tips pressed against his lips, looking all the world like a movie chef waiting on the climactic final verdict from the Toughest Food Critic In Town. You’re puzzled for a moment, searching both his face and the tattoo for clues, wondering if you’ve missed something. 

Then the significance of the tattoo hits you like a careening truck overfull of symbolism sharp enough to cram through even the thickest of skulls. 

The silly, poorly drawn pictograph gracing your shoulder is of the very same design as the one on  _Dirk’s_ , albeit reversed and complementary in location to yours. Your confusion evaporates and you let out only a tiny _oh_  and nothing more. Your shocked silence must have disquieted Dirk because you see him visibly swallow.

“So. What do you think?”

You’re beginning to sweat again, and you swallow yourself. Blimey, Dirk’s given you a  _matching_  tattoo to his. He’s prattled on about the significance of his own tattoo before and wow this is definitely not what you were expecting and it’s kind of very overwhelming for you. 

But not in a bad way, oh no! You’re frankly flattered and—admittedly—a tad  _excited_  by this fact. 

The grin on your face feels stupid and silly as you finally turn fully to Dirk and clap him on the shoulder. 

“Why, it’s stupendous, Dirk old boy! I daresay that we are much like two peas in a pod now!”

You hope the enthusiasm in your voice does not sound toocontrived because the tattoo really does genuinely make you thrilled. And that must have come through right because Dirk offers you a muted smile in return and lays his own forearm across your shoulder, careful to avoid the raw red halo surrounding your new body art. He affectionately scratches the back of your neck and sighs, breath just barely curling over your lips. 

“Thanks, Jake.”


End file.
